Issues - Environmental Challenges & Solutions

Ecosystem Integrity

Conservation of endangered species is a complex and complicated process that encompasses many forms and ideas. While the focus on the rescue and rehabilitation of individual animals, or the halting of poaching and the illegal pet trade is imperative if orangutans and other species are to survive, at its heart, conservation involves the protection of ecosystems and the vast areas of land In which animals live and which humans depend on.

The entire planet is a vast network of ecosystems and ecosystem services that control and stabilize everything on our planet. The functions of intact ecosystems are so intricate and varied it is impossible to name all of them, but ecosystems are responsible for the purity of the air we breathe, for the distribution and quality of the water we drink, for generating oxygen, stabilizing our climate, decomposing and detoxifying detritus, creating soils and recycling nutrients essential to agriculture (Sekercioglu, 2010).

There are few ecosystems more important than forests. Orangutans are the largest arboreal animal in the world, and the only great ape found in Asia. As large primates who feed chiefly on fruit and are found only in the lowland tropical rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, their future survival relies on the future of Asia’s tropical rainforests. Although studies indicate orangutans can survive in degraded and disturbed tropical rainforest (Ancrenaz et al, 2007), they simply cannot survive in any other type of ecosystem.

But the future of the forest is not just important for the future of orangutans. Humans rely on them as well. Forests are often referred to as the lungs of the earth, on account of the role they play in regulating the world’s atmosphere. Through a process known as photosynthesis, forests, more specifically the plants that cover their trees, absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide and convert it into organic compounds, including oxygen (Sekercioglu, 2010). Oxygen, which comprises 20% of the air we breathe, allows the atmosphere to essentially ‘clean’ itself through the oxidation of compounds such as carbon monoxide (Sodhi et al, 2007). These cycles are so intricately linked that any changes in one component can have a drastic effect on another (Sekercioglu, 2010). Studies have shown that forests play an important role in the regulation of the world’s climate, with tropical rainforests, like those in which orangutans live, acting as heat and humidity pumps, transferring heat from the tropics to more temperate zones, and releasing water vapor that comes back as rain (Sodhi et al, 2007), and there are fears that if the integrity of these forests is not maintained, these systems could be compromised and lead to warmer and more extreme weather conditions in future.

Forests are also vital for the role they play in the provisioning and regulation of water resources. During downpours, the vegetation layers of forests act as a block, intercepting raindrops that would ordinarily fall directly to the ground. By intercepting rainfall and decreasing the speed in which they fall and hit the ground, forests reduce the risk of flooding, something extremely important in tropical climates prone to downpours that can deposit large amounts of rainfall in short spaces of time (Bradshaw et al, 2007). Forest ecosystems alone regulate a third of the planet’s watersheds, on which nearly five billion people depend (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), and, despite covering just 6% of the world’s surface, tropical rainforests receive nearly half of the world's rainfall (Myers, 1997). In southeast Asia, an intact old growth tropical forest is likely to intercept at least 35% of all rainfall, while a palm oil plantation is likely to intercept just 12% (Ba, 1977), and extensive flooding in Kalimantan over the last few years has been attributed to the conversion of primary rainforest to palm oil plantations (Jakarta Post, 2008). It has been estimated that a 10% decrease in forest cover in developing countries would lead to a flood frequency increase of between 4% and 28% (Bradshaw et al, 2007), while studies have shown that the impact of the 2004 tsunami, which ravaged areas of Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, would have been reduced if the hardest hit areas had not been stripped of their mangrove forests, which act as buffers against floods and rising water levels (Dahdouh-guebas et al, 2005). The latter is a particularly important function. The 230,000-hectare Tripa peat swamps in northern Sumatra are an essential freshwater reservoir for local people but also saved countless lives during the tsunami, by acting as a buffer to rising tides. Studies have also shown that these forests, which harbor a large population of Sumatran orangutans, protect communities from flooding, as the peat swamps control and regulate the flow of rain and river water to the coast (Ruysschaert, 2009).

Maintaining the integrity of the forest ecosystem is also important for the role it plays in maintaining the quality and conservation of soil and preventing soil erosion. Soil is ‘one of the most critical but also most underappreciated and abused elements of natural capital, one that can take a few years to lose and millennia to replace’ (Sekercioglu, 2010), and soil provides six major functions; moderating the hydrologic cycle, providing physical support to plants, retention and delivery of nutrients to plants, disposal of wastes and dead organic matter, renewal of soil fertility and regulation of major element cycles (Daily et al, 1997). Due to soil’s enormous water retention capacity, most of the rain that falls every year throughout the world is absorbed and gradually released to feed plants, underground aquifers, and rivers. However, intensive cultivation, usually after deforestation, can reduce this capacity, leading to floods, erosion, pollution and further loss of organic matter (Pimentel et al, 1995), and it is estimated that today, 11 million km2 of land is affected by high rates of soil erosion (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), with 75 billion tons of soil being eroded from terrestrial ecosystems every year (Pimental & Kounang, 1998).

Although erosion is a natural process that releases nutrients and makes them available to plants, the loss of forest or vegetation cover exposes soils and increases the impact of rain, wind and other elements, causing runoffs, often into water reservoirs, and landslides. Studies in East Kalimantan have shown that, in logged forests, trails become rivers of mud just a few minutes after rainfall, that rivers draining logging areas soon become highly polluted (Chin, 1987), and that the steep slopes and hilly topography of this province make soil erosion likely whenever the forest cover is broken (Stadtmueller, 1990). Field studies in 1986 in the province also show that converting rainforest in to rice fields, and failing to put soil conservation initiatives into practice, saw large rates of soil erosion and loss of soil fertility (Secrett, 1986), something still seen today, where, in the tropics, farming can result in the loss of half the soil nutrients in less than a decade (Bolin and Cook, 1983). Soil erosion is both devastating for the global economy, with the direct costs of erosion totaling around $250 billion per year (Pimental et al, 1995), and for local people and wildlife. In Tanjung Puting National Park in central Kalimantan, a 400,000 hectare expanse of forest with a large orangutan population, mining activities and illegal logging have caused increased erosion and runoff in to the Seknoyer river, which has turned the naturally clear black water in to a muddy brown, decreasing visibility, which is the likely cause of an increase in crocodile attacks on humans, and causing concern for local people, who rely on the river and its fish for survival (Mongabay, 2006).

The draining of peat swamps, for agriculture and timber extraction, has also become one of the biggest threats to forest ecosystems in Indonesia. Peat swamps are forests with waterlogged soils that prevent dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing, which, over time, creates a thick layer of acidic peat. South East Asian countries have over 20 million hectares of peat swamp forests (World Rainforest Movement, 2002), and in Indonesia, the two national parks with the highest densities of wild orangutans, Sebangau and Tanjung Puting, are predominantly peat swamp forests. Peat swamps are like sponges, and absorb large amounts of rain and river water during the wet season, controlling floods and runoff, and releasing it slowly during the dry season. Despite the forests invaluable ecological functions, Indonesia has seen large conversion of peat swamps for agriculture, and it is predicted that a further 3 million hectares of peat swamps will be converted for palm oil plantations by 2020 (Hooijer et al, 2010). This conversion, which involves draining the peat and drying it out, reduces the forests ecological functions and makes it susceptible to fire. Fire does not normally spread in the moist, closed canopy environment of undisturbed peat swamp forests (Harrison et al, 2009), but dry peat smolders for long periods and burns down to the water table, and peat swamp forest trees, which are not naturally adapted to fire, have a high post-fire tree mortality (Harrison et al, 2009).

The protection of forest ecosystems in Indonesia and Malaysia is important for the future of both orangutans and people, from both an ecological and economic point of view, but protecting ecosystems does just not just mean protecting the trees and large mammals that inhabit them, it means protecting the millions of species that work together, in intricate, tightly woven cycles. It has been said that when humans alter ecosystems, it is often the large mammals that are the first to disappear. This can have a devastating effect on the forest ecosystem and particular species, particularly those species of fruit that rely on digestion and dispersal by large mammals, and studies have shown that the loss of large carnivores can see a surge in the number of herbivores, which then deplete plant species, in turn causing a decline in the density and diversity of other species (Ripple & Bescheta, 2006), while the loss of large herbivores can cause the opposite effect, a large increase in the number of plants, and a corresponding increase in the number of small herbivores, like rodents, and their predators, such as snakes (McCauley et al, 2006). But while orangutans and other charismatic large mammals in the forests of southeast Asia, the leopards, tigers, elephants and rhino’s, play an important part in the forest ecosystem, the part is no more important than the millions of species of birds, reptiles, insects, plants, fungi and others that work together to provide the services we and the world depend on for our survival.

Albert Einstein once reportedly said “if the bee disappears from the face of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination……no more man”. Whether or not he actually said this, and whether or not that timeframe is technically accurate or not, it nevertheless stresses the importance of the smaller, less charismatic species, and the invaluable role they play in the wider ecosystem To protect orangutans, and ourselves, we must protect all of them.

References

Ancrenaz, M., Dabek, L. & O'Neil, S. (2007). The Costs of Exclusion: Recognizing a Role for Local Communities in Biodiversity Conservation.PLoS Biol 5(11)

Ba L.K. (1977). Bio-economics of trees in native Malayan forest.Department of Botany, University of Malaya.

The Orangutan-Global Warming Connection

The word 'orangutan' is derived from the Malay terms 'orang', meaning person, and 'hutan', meaning forest, and few names could be more appropriate, for the future of the orangutan is intricately linked to the future of their rainforest home, and while forest fires, logging and conversion to agriculture are considered the most immediate threats to orangutan populations, the long-term composite effects of these actions on the global climate is likely to bring changes and challenges far greater than those seen today.

The entire planet is a vast network of integrated ecosystems and ecosystem services that control and regulate everything humans, and all other animals, depend on for survival, the most fundamental being the air that we breathe and the water we drink (Sekercioglu, 2010). The air that we breathe is regulated by a system, called the carbon cycle, which incorporates the planets four main reservoirs of carbon: the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the organic carbon compounds within organisms, the dissolved carbon in water systems, and the carbon compounds found within the earth, as part of soil, limestone, peat, coal, natural gas and petroleum (Alexander at al, 1997). Carbon is the dominant force that both shapes life and regulates the world's climate, and plants, which absorb carbon through a system called photosynthesis, play a major role in fixing the amount of CO2in the atmosphere, with most terrestrial carbon storage occurring in forest trees (Falkowski et al, 2000). The destruction of these forested areas, and the continued exploitation of buried organic matter, often called fossil fuels, has led to a dramatic increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2, and a corresponding warming of the world's climate. Since 1750, atmospheric CO2concentrations have increased by 34% (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) and by the end of the century, the average global temperature is projected to rise by 1-8to 6.4 degrees Celsius (IPCC, 2007).

The effects of these rising temperatures are already being felt throughout the world. In Greenland, the melt rate of its glaciers is increasing, and the seismic activity they generate is accelerating (Lovejoy, 2009), and glaciers in most of the world are also in retreat, with those on high peaks in the tropics, like those on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, receding at such a rate they are unlikely to exist in 15 years (UNEP, 2007). Longer summers and an earlier melt of the snow pack have led to an increase in wildfires in the American West (Flannigan et al, 2000), and many species have been observed changing the timing of their life histories, life cycles and their migration patterns to deal with seasonal changes (Root et al, 2003; Dunn and Winkler, 1999). In the tropical climate of Costa Rica, the Monteverde cloud forest, an ecosystem dependent on condensation from clouds for moisture, has been experiencing more frequent dry days, as the elevation at which clouds form has risen, and there are fears the golden toad that inhabits these forests could be the first documented terrestrial extinction caused by climate change (Pounds et al, 1999).

As an archipelago of 17,508 islands, and with one of the world's highest rates of deforestation (FAO, 2005), Indonesia is both one of the world's biggest contributors to climate change, and one of the country's most adversely affected by it.

Indonesia lies within the inter tropical convergence zone (ITCZ), a belt of low air pressure that runs along the equator, where winds originating in the northern and southern hemispheres meet, and its climate is characterized not by temperature, but by two seasons of varying rainfall. Tropical countries in the ITCZ are some of the wettest on earth, and Indonesia's seasonal patterns of rainfall and winds are strongly related to its location on the equator between mainland Asia and Australia. Monsoons blowing in from mainland Asia bring heavy rainfall from November to March, and southeastern winds from Australia bring a period of infrequent rainfall from June to September (Galdikas, 2009). Indonesia receives an average of 70 to 125 inches of rainfall every year in the lowlands, with some mountainous regions receiving up to 240 inches per year (Galdikas, 2009), but the region is also strongly affected by local weather patterns, known as the El Nino/La Nina Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and caused by variations in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, which causes floods, droughts, and variations in annual rainfall.

During El Nino years, dry season rainfall can be less than half of normal (Harrison et al, 2009), and particularly severe El Nino years have seen huge fires devastate Indonesia's forests. Once thought to occur around once every seven years, there is evidence that climate change is causing an increase in the frequency and severity of El Nino southern oscillations (Yeager et al, 2003), with Indonesia experiencing drought conditions and corresponding forest fires in 1972-73, 1982-83, 1987, 1991-92, 1997-1998, 2002, 2006 & 2009. The results were devastating. Forest fires in 1982 and 1983 burned around 3.6 million hectares of forest in East Kalimantan alone (Leighton & Wirawan, 1986), and forest fires in 1997 and 1998, usually started by local farmers or plantation companies and exacerbated by drought conditions, are believed to have destroyed at least 9.7 million hectares of forest throughout Indonesia (Case et al, 2009), significantly affected 36 of the 45 major forest blocks in Kalimantan, and devastated the country's national parks (Yeager et al, 2003). It is believed that thousands of orangutans died as the forests burned in 1997/98, with a survey in 2003 showing the wild population in the Sebangau area of central Kalimantan had decreased by 49%, from a total of 13,000 in 1996 (Suhuh & Saleh, 2007). Hundreds of adult orangutans were also killed by villagers as they fled and wandered into villages in search of food, and orangutan rehabilitation centers were inundated with orphaned babies and infants, otherwise destined for the illegal pet trade (Barber & Schweithelm, 2010).

Of great concern is the amount of carbon dioxide the fires released into the atmosphere. During the 1997-98 fires, 2 million hectares of the forest burned was carbon-rich peat swamp forest (Page et al, 2002), which is believed to have released 0.81-2.57 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere (Rieley, 2002). The surface air temperature in Asia has already increased by approximately 1-3 degrees over the last century, and annual precipitation has decreased by two to three percent across the whole of Indonesia over the same period (Case et al, 2009). It is feared that the increased frequency of El Nino impacted forest fires could create a positive-feedback loop, whereby increased burning increases atmospheric CO2concentrations, which raises temperatures, and increases the frequency and severity of ENSO events, thereby increasing the incidence and severity of future fires (Harrison et al, 2009). Additionally, forests that have burned once are then more susceptible to future fires, as the reduced canopy cover reduces humidity levels in the forest, increasing the rate at which biomass dries, and therefore increasing the forests fuel load (Yeager et al, 2003).

While the increase in drought conditions and forest fires is considered one of the most immediate threats to the future of wild orangutan populations and wild orangutan forest habitat, the long-term effects of the fires on the quality of the forest, and its susceptibility to future climate change, is also a concern. Orangutans are frugivorous primates, and are known to feed on up to 400 different types of fruit. Their very survival depends on there being enough fruit, and other forest products, to sustain them. During and after the 1997/98 El Nino fires, fruit was abundant in the Kayan Mentarang National Park in East Kalimantan in the months of January to March 1998, but then plummeted and remained low during 1999 and 2000, with some species of the Artocarpus genus failing to produce any fruits from July 1998-October 1999 at all (Suhud & Saleh, 2007). Studies in Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan after the same fires revealed the burned peat swamp had between 13.1-68.9% fewer tree species than unburned forest in the same area, with similar findings for other areas of peat swamp forest in East Kalimantan, and follow up surveys in the same forest eight months later showed tree mortality had increased significantly (Yeager at al, 2003).

Warming temperatures and changes in precipitation and seasonality are likely to affect the phenology of fruiting trees, and the seasonal activities of the forests' flora and fauna (Saleh, 2009). It has been predicted that temperatures in Asia will increase by between 0.72-3.92 degrees between now and the end of the century, and the annual monsoon in Indonesia could be delayed every year by 30 days due to changes in the regional climate (Chase et al, 2009). A longer, more severe dry season is likely to reduce the abundance of fruits (Saleh, 2009), and although orangutans have been shown to store fat during periods of low fruit availability (Knott, 1998), longer periods like these will force orangutans to rely more heavily on low quality fall back foods, such as bark, and struggle to maintain their body weight. This is also likely to have an effect on orangutan reproduction, as females are less likely to conceive during periods of low fruit abundance (Saleh, 2009), and orangutan ranging patterns and social systems, as orangutans change their behavior and locations to deal with the scarcity of suitable forest foods (Suhud & Saleh, 2007).

Orangutans have become the most high profile victim of climate change in Indonesia, but they are not the only species to have suffered over the last few decades, nor is their habitat the only one to have been damaged. Coral reefs are under threat from warming sea-surface temperatures and bleaching, and an increase in extreme weather events, warming temperatures and changes in ocean circulation and salinity patterns may impact Indonesia's marine turtle populations (Case et al, 2009). It is estimated that 34% of Asia's coral reefs were lost during the El Nino fires of 1997/98, and increased temperatures are expected to severely alter fish habitat in the equatorial Pacific (Case et al, 2009). Indonesia's coastal mangroves are also threatened by sea-level rises, reduced freshwater flows and salt-water intrusion, and projected changes in the level of precipitation, temperatures and seasonality are expected to adversely affect the regions amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, including humans (Case et al, 2009).

Global warming, or climate change, is one of the most challenging and controversial threats facing the planet. Although there are many who claim human activities are unlikely to be the cause of this warming, the overwhelming scientific consensus suggests otherwise, and the effects are large to be felt everywhere. Conserving tropical rainforests, their plants, leaves and peat bogs, is one of the most effective ways of decreasing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, and is the only way of securing the future of the orangutan species.

Converting Forest to Agriculture

Habitat fragmentation is defined as the breaking apart of continuous habitat in to distinct pieces, and can be understood in terms of three interrelated processes; a reduction in the total amount of original vegetation, subdivision of the remaining vegetation in to fragments, and the introduction of new forms of land use to replace lost vegetation, usually in the form of agriculture (Bennett & Saunders, 2010).

Forests and other natural habitats have been converted for agricultural use for as long as humans have walked the earth, and while most of the focus recently has been on the conversion of tropical rainforests to agricultural plantations, landscapes all throughout the world are still being converted, and in the developed world, natural landscapes are a shadow of their former selves.

Of the 16 million km2 of tropical rainforests that once existed, just around 9 million km2 exists today, with forests in South East Asia disappearing most rapidly. Tropical dry forests along the Central American Pacific coast now cover just 1% of the total land cover they used to, and from 1990 to 2000, over 1% of all mangroves were lost annually. By 1990, more than two-thirds of Mediterranean forests and woodlands had been lost, mainly for conversion to agriculture, and in the eastern USA and Europe, old-growth broadleaf forests have nearly disappeared. 10-20% of the world’s grasslands have been destroyed for agriculture, and in South America, more than half of the biologically richcerradosavannas, which formally spanned over 2 million km2, have been converted into soy fields and cattle pastures in recent decades (Laurance, 2010). It is estimated that over the past 3 centuries, the global extent of cropland has risen from around 2.7 to 15 million km2 (Laurance, 2010).

The conversion of tropical rainforests for agricultural purposes throughout Indonesia and Malaysia has been immense. Today, approximately 45% of Indonesia’s workers are engaged in agriculture, with 31 million hectares of land under cultivation, with 35-40% of that land devoted to the production of export crops. In Indonesia, there are three main types of agricultural farming; smallholder farming, smallholder cash cropping, and about 1,800 large foreign-owned or privately owned estates. Small-scale farming is usually carried out in modest plots and usually focuses on the cultivation of rice for subsistence, with vegetables and fruit also grown. These products are also grown as cash crops for export, with rubber also cultivated, and making up around 20% of all cash crop exports. Of estate grown crops, rubber, tobacco, sugar, palm oil, hard fiber, coffee, tea, cocoa, and cinchona are the most important (Encyclopedia of the Nations, 2011).

The conversion of forest to agriculture involves the chopping down of trees and the corresponding loss of biodiversity. Although very few animal species can live in any type of plantation, if managed well, plantations can still retain some of the ecosystem functions of tropical rainforests.

In their undisturbed state, tropical rainforests have a virtually closed canopy, comprise millions of different species of trees, leaves and animals, and have a forest floor covered in a thin layer of leaf litter, underlain by a highly permeable topsoil, a formation with means they have one of the lowest surface erosion rates of any form of land use (Critchley & Bruijnzeel, 1996). Tropical forests also produce an extraordinary amount of plant biomass, caused by the compact nutrient cycle of these ecosystems, with plant nutrients that enter the forest ecosystem, through rain, dust and aerosols, being cycled continuously between the canopy and the soil, with only small amounts leaking out of the system (Critchley & Bruijnzeel, 1996). This delicately balanced cycle is disturbed when trees are cut down.

Of all the methods of clearing trees, manual clearing is the least damaging to the soil. However, it is a slow and expensive method, particularly when large areas of forest need to be cleared. Instead, most plantations, particularly those owned by large corporations, will use heavy machinery, often with root takes, which are used to uproot tree stumps. When the timber is extracted, forest debris will often be set alight, a cheaper and easier way of clearing any vegetation still left. After clearing, this land will be planted with crops.

The soil quality and productivity of plantations depend heavily on both the methods used, and the crop being cultivated. Tea, for example, is usually grown in areas with year-round abundant rainfall and is often cultivated in areas of high altitude, where terraces will be constructed before planting. Tea plantations can last for several decades before production declines, and of all the land use systems that replace tropical rainforests, it is usually considered to be one of the most effective, with respect to soil erosion, because tea trees often grow tall, and form a closed canopy (Critchley & Bruijnzeel, 1996). In contrast, coffee trees need wider spacing, to allow access for picking and spraying, so coffee plantations have a much sparser canopy and are more susceptible to soil erosion and invasive weeds. Rubber plantations, which are abundant throughout Sumatra, require deep, relatively fertile soil and thrive best on flat land. To establish rubber plantations, the land is clear stumped, to avoid disease transmission to the trees, and newly planted rubber plantations are susceptible to high levels of erosion and runoff (Critchley & Bruijnzeel, 1996).

When a natural forest is converted to a plantation, the reduction in plant cover increases the overall catchment of water, and it can often take years, when crops and trees start growing, for this water yield to decrease. Even then, crop plantations almost always use less water than original forests, and in areas surrounding plantations, runoff waters, usually discolored with sediment, can be observed. However, although the process of conversion is highly destructive, the destruction of the lands services can be limited by using appropriate clearing practices and land management techniques, including controlled drainage, bench terraces, contour farming or the introduction of biological barriers, like hedges or woodland (Critchley & Bruijnzeel, 1996).

Over the last few decades, the agricultural commodity that has received the most attention and is considered to have caused the most destruction to primary forests throughout Indonesia and Malaysia is palm oil. Palm oil (Elaeis guineenis) is native to Africa and was first planed in Indonesia in 1848. It is suited to tropical regions within 12 to 15 degrees north and south of the equator, where the average rainfall is between 2,000 and 2,500 millimeters per year. As the palm oil harvest declines during the dry season and the flowering period and maturation of the fruit is affected by temperature, humidity needs to be high, between 80 to 90%, and the temperature needs to lie between 29 to 30 degrees (Rautner et al, 2005). Borneo and Sumatra are therefore ideal, and thousands of hectares of lowland tropical rainforest, habitat for the islands’ orangutans, tigers, elephants, rhino’s, leopards, gibbons, and numerous other species, has been converted to make room for this oil.

Palm oil, which has the highest per hectare yield (4-8 tons) of all edible oils, is now the most important vegetable oil in the world. In 2002, palm oil, and palm kernel oil accounted for approximately 23% of the world’s edible oil production, and 51% of global trade in edible oils. Indonesia is now the world’s largest exporter of palm oil, with Malaysia a close second, and between 2016 and 2020, the projected production by Indonesia is around 18,000 million tons, or 44% of world production, while Malaysia’s estimated output will be 15,400 million tons, or 37.7% (Rautner et al, 2005).

Palm oil plantations are usually established after large areas of forest have been cleared by heavy machinery. After the timber has been extracted and sold on the international legal or illegal timber market, leftover debris is usually set alight. The use of fire to clear forest is one of the most destructive practices and is partly responsible for the extensive fires that have ravaged forests throughout Indonesia and Malaysia in recent years, including the devastating fires of 1997 and 1998 (Rautner et al, 2005; Harrison et al, 2009).

Palm oil trees are single-stemmed and can grow up to 20 meters tall, and have leaves that grow up to 3-5 meters long. The palm fruits start bearing 2-3 years after the palm tree has been planted, and they take around 5 months to mature from pollination, growing in large bunches. Oil is extracted from both the pulp of the fruit, which becomes palm oil and the kernel, which becomes palm kernel oil. In order for the trees to yield fruit earlier, and to control invasive weeds, pesticides are regularly used, including the highly toxic Paraquat, and have been blamed not only for the decreased level of biodiversity in palm oil plantations, but also for poisoning thousands of plantation workers (Rautner et al, 2005; WRM, 2005). Forest conversion for palm oil plantations results in a loss of 80% of plant species, and in palm oil monocultures, research has shown 80-90% of mammals, reptiles and bird species found in tropical forests cannot survive (Rautner et al 2005). It is feared that the increasing demand for palm oil in both household products and as a biofuel will see even more areas of lowland forest converted to plantations, and a continued decrease in populations of endangered species.

The conversion of forests for agriculture is a historic process that is unlikely to stop in the near future. So far in Indonesia and Malaysia, and wider parts of the world, this conversion has taken place in lowland areas home to some of the world’s most endangered animals. Managing and preventing future forest loss, while considering the needs of a rapidly increasing human population, will be one of the greatest environmental challenges of the next few decades.

Hopefully, lessons can be learned from one of the greatest environmental disasters in history, Indonesia’s ‘Mega Rice Project’. The Mega Rice Project was a plan by former Indonesian president Suharto to make Indonesia self-sufficient in rice production. The project proposed to convert 796,000 hectares of peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan into rice fields, with an additional settlement program to relocate 316,000 transmigrant families to the area. Despite not carrying out a cost-benefit or sensitivity analysis, and repeated warnings by scientists that the project would fail and the depth of the peat made it unsuitable for conversion, Suharto went ahead with the project. Around $175 million was spent on the scheme, half of which went towards digging canals to drain the peat swamp, which was so deep it subsided. After Suharto fell from power in 1998, the project was abandoned, and no rice has ever been grown on the land. Today, the Mega Rice Project area is a barren wasteland, where the transmigrants are unable to grow rice or enough crops to survive, where poverty is rife, where orangutans and other wildlife are scarce and live in fragmented patches of forest, and the area is prone to illegal logging and frequent forest fires (Rautner et al, 2005).

The RSPO and sustainable palm oil

The spread of palm oil plantations and the developing palm oil industry is both one of the greatest threats to the survival of the orangutans and an important driver of future economic growth in Indonesia and Malaysia. Despite repeated and high profile warnings of the toll the development of the industry is taking on the region's biodiversity, the number of plantations continues to increase.

Palm oil is derived from the fruit of the oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis),which is native to the tropical rainforests of Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Angola and the Congo Basin, in Africa, all tropical countries that experience high levels of rainfall, to which oil palm is suited.

The processing of oil palm fruit has been practiced in Africa for thousands of years and is an essential ingredient in much of traditional West African cuisine (FAO, 2008). Its history as an agricultural commodity is, however, relatively recent. Fruits of the oil palm tree were first taken from Africa to the Americas and the Far East between the 14thand 17thcenturies, and the international trade in palm oil began at the beginning of the 19thcentury, with palm oil becoming the principal cargo of slave ships after the abolition of the slave trade. As living standards in Europe increased during the industrial revolution, demand for palm oil increased, principally for use in soaps and other household products, and as an industrial lubricant. In the 1870s, exports of palm oil from the Niger Delta were 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes per year, and by 1911, the British West African Territories exported 87,700 tonnes annually (FAO, 2008). The export of palm oil kernel also began in 1832, and by 1911, the British West African Territories were exporting 157,000 tonnes, 75% of which was from Nigeria, which was the largest exporter of palm oil until it was surpassed by Malaysia in 1934 (FAO, 2008).

The oil palm tree was first introduced to Malaysia as an ornamental plant in 1875 and was first planted as a commercial crop in 1917 (Basiron, 2007), and its use and cultivation have grown exponentially ever since. Areas under oil palm in Malaysia have increased from 54,000 hectares in 1960 to 4.05 million hectares in 2005, reflecting an annual growth of 10.06% (Basiron, 2007).

In both Indonesia and Malaysia, the area planted with oil palm has trebled from 24,000 km2 in 1990 to 83,700 km2 in 2007, an average annual increase of around 3,500 km2, and it is estimated that at least 55% of oil palm expansion in these countries came at the expanse of natural forests, with the remainder obtained from the conversion of pre-existing croplands such as rubber and cocoa (Nantha & Tisdell, 2008). In 2007 alone, Malaysia and Indonesia made US$14 billion and US$5.5 billion from palm oil export revenue, and the industry, directly and indirectly, employs around a million people in both of these countries (Nantha & Tisdell, 2008).

Palm oil is commonly found in three varieties:Dura, Pissifera, andTenera,which is a hybrid ofDuraandPisifera,and is the one most commonly planted today (Kubota et al, 2009). Oil palm trees need deep, well-structured soil to grow on, with an uninterrupted supply of clean water, and can reach a height of around 60 feet, producing fruit bunches that weigh between 10 and 25kg and contain several hundred fruitlets, which are orange-red in color, ripening to dark (Kubota et al, 2009). Palm oil trees usually begin bearing fruit bunches of sufficient size after 30 months (Basiron, 2007) and are harvested by removing ripe bunches using a chisel on a short pole, or a sickle on a larger pole for taller fruit. On average, two or three bunches are harvested from each tree, and harvesting rounds are usually organized throughout the year so that the palm is visited every 2 weeks. The trees produce fruit for 30 years, with the yield decreasing over time (Kubota et al, 2009; Barison, 2007).

Although usually referred to generically as just ‘palm oil’, the fruits of the oil palm tree actually produce two different types of oil, palm oil, and palm oil kernel. Palm oil fruits are comprised of an outer skin called the exocarp; a fleshy interior from which the palm fruit oil is squeezed; an inner nut called the endocarp, and a kernel inside the nut from which palm kernel oil is squeezed (Kabota et al, 2009). The two oils are extracted by careful separation during the milling process. Palm oil is used predominantly in food products, while palm kernel oil is used mainly as an ingredient in soap, detergents and toiletry products, and accounts for about 10% of the quantity of palm oil produced. The kernel also yields a residual product called palm kernel meal, which is used as an ingredient in animal feed (Basiron, 2007).

The palm oil trees high yield, cheap cost and the fact that the yield is semi-solid at room temperature, so does not need to be hardened to be useful as a shortening, has made palm oil the most widely traded oil on the international market. Highly versatile, it is used in a variety of household products, from margarine and shortening to cooking oil, soups, baked goods, and confectionary products. It can also be a substitute for hard animal fats, such as butter and lard, and for soy, olive or canola liquid vegetable oils. Chocolate products such as candy bars and cake icing use palm oil as a substitute for cocoa butter, and it is often found in ice cream, peanut butter, coffee whitener, canned cream soups, potato chips, milk, trail mix and other snack foods (Brown & Jacobson, 2005). WWF estimates that 50% of all packaged supermarket products contain palm oil.

Finding a way to balance the spread of palm oil plantations and the increasing demand for palm oil, palm kernel oil and palm kernel meal on the international market is one of the greatest challenges for conservationists working in Indonesia and Malaysia. Condemning the whole industry, or hoping that it simply fades away, is unrealistic, so conservationists have increasingly begun working with the industry, encouraging the concept of sustainable palm oil.

On paper, all oil palm plantations should already be sustainable, as their development is strongly regulated by laws in both Indonesia and Malaysia. In Indonesia, which is home to the largest populations of orangutans and the most substantial tracts of rainforest in South East Asia, no significant land development activities are permitted before the company has obtained a valid Plantation Business Permit (IUP), which should only be awarded after an Environmental Impact Assessment has been completed and approved. According to Indonesian law, developing an oil palm plantation without an EIA should result in any IUP that has been issued being revoked (Greenpeace, 2009). Indonesian law also stipulates that any area that contains peat deeper than 3 meters should automatically be afforded legally protected status, and that if any concessions contain forested areas, companies are forbidden from cutting trees or harvesting and collecting any forest products until they have obtained a Timber Cutting Permit (IPK), which is issued at a local level by either the governor or the district head (Greenpeace, 2009). As orangutans are a protected species throughout the country, their presence in any forested area should, on paper, ensure its protection. In reality, these laws are routinely flouted.

In order to ensure laws are adhered to, and to encourage sustainability throughout the industry, in 2004, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed. Made up of a consortium of NGO’s and palm oil producers, the voluntary organization hopes to encourage palm oil producers to adopt practices and guidelines that would lead to palm oil production becoming environmentally and socially sustainable. Hence, by joining the organisation companies are obliged to comply with the RSPO’s ‘Principles & Criteria’, which stipulate that all palm oil producers commit to transparency, comply with all laws and regulations of the countries they are working in, commit to long-term economic viability, use appropriate best practices, behave in an environmentally responsible way and conserve natural resources and biodiversity, consider employees and local communities and adhere to responsible development. If all these criteria are reached, palm oil producers are encouraged to have their palm oil plantations certified by the RSPO as sustainable, which would allow them to use the RSPO logo and advertise their palm oil as such.

Launched with much fanfare and with the support of the majority of rainforest conservation charities, including OURF, the RSPO has tried to regulate the industry and bring the issue of palm oil and its sustainability to consumers. However, it has also been dogged by accusations of ineffectiveness, infighting, lax regulation, and competing interests. At the heart of these issues is the debate over whether palm oil can ever be truly sustainable, and whether such a complicated extraction, processing and distribution process can ever be properly certified. To try and combat this, the RSPO offers four different categories of certification, with different levels of certification depending on how thoroughly the palm oil can be traced from source to distribution. The most popular certification method is the Greenpalm scheme, an RSPO endorsed trading scheme that enables palm oil producers to earn a premium for using sustainable production methods, regardless of whether their product is exported. RSPO-certified producers have issued certificates for each tonne of certified palm oil that they produce. End-users can then 'cover' their use of palm oil by buying the certificates from GreenPalm, in the process supporting sustainable palm oil production (GreenPalm website).

An issue that many NGO’s have raised with the RSPO is its lack of ability to properly enforce rules and the danger that RSPO membership is becoming a way for palm oil producers to present to the buying public a veneer of sustainability without any actual desire to produce their palm oil sustainably. In 2009, controversy arose in New Zealand after Cadbury began putting palm oil in its popular dairy milk bars, prompting a public backlash by consumers and conservationists in the country. Cadbury eventually relented, and announced it would revert to using traditional cocoa butter, but assured consumers that all the palm oil they used was certified and sustainably produced because it had independent GreenPalm certification. While for many this would be reassuring, closer examination revealed that the palm oil used was most likely not sustainable; as mentioned in the paragraph above, GreenPalm certificates are given if a plantation proves they are producing palm oil sustainably. However, this just means that the company has at least one sustainable plantation, and the GreenPalm certificate issued can be sold old to another company. The palm oil produced on that certified plantation is not sold or kept separately; it is simply put into the same tanker as the unsustainably sourced palm oil, and shipped to manufacturers. In essence, the GreenPalm certificate does not guarantee consumers are consuming sustainable palm oil (The Guardian, 2009).

In 2009, First Resources, a Hong Kong-based palm oil company and member of the RSPO, was found by the NGO International Animal Rescue to be clearing land illegally in West Kalimantan and was responsible for a number of orangutan deaths, and for the capture of infant orangutans. After these orangutans were rescued, an official complaint was made to the RSPO. While this company does not have any of its plantations certified as being sustainable, its membership of the RSPO states it must adhere to the Principles and Criteria of the organization. Although the RSPO agreed to look in to the matter, three years later First Resources are still a member of the RSPO, there is no mention of the complaint on the RSPO website, and the company is free to advertise its membership of the RSPO on its own website, under its commitment to sustainability initiatives, even though it has made no effort whatsoever to behave sustainably. While the difference between being an RSPO member and having your production being RSPO certified are two very different things, for consumers, this is not always clear, and for many, the RSPO is a smokescreen, behind which palm oil producers sit (RAN, 2011).

The RSPO, in response, points out that it is a voluntary organization, and is limited in its capacity to fully sanction companies that break its rules. It also must deal with the competing interests of the palm oil producers and distributors that are among its members. In 2011, IOI Group, one of Malaysia’s leading producers of palm oil, was reported to the RSPO by a number of NGO’s after evidence was collated showing IOI was responsible for illegally clearing large tracts of forest in Kalimantan. The RSPO responded by announcing that the company had breached its code of conduct, and granted it a limit by which time it must provide answers to the accusations. Although there was criticism that the RSPO had not done more, the fact that it had publicly criticized an RSPO member was rare, and came a year after the RSPO had publicly rebuked PT Smart Tbk and its parent company Golden-Agri Resources for breaches of the RSPO rules, the first time it had done so (Reuters, 2010). While these actions were welcomed by conservationists, they angered the Malaysian government and palm oil body, who in 2011 announced plans to form its own sustainable palm oil regulatory body, implying that the RSPO was becoming too strict (Mongabay, 2011). While this has been interpreted by some as a sign that Malaysian and Indonesian, palm oil producers are becoming increasingly aware of the issue of sustainable palm oil, it is feared that if companies pull away from the RSPO, it would make the industries only recognized regulatory body largely irrelevant.

Although it needs improvement, the RSPO is currently the only organization able to regulate an industry that poses the greatest threat to orangutan populations in the wild. As the use of palm oil increases and a greater threat is placed on desirable lowland tropical forests, it is more imperative than ever that business leaders are encouraged to behave in an environmentally responsible way, and suppliers are put under pressure, by both NGO’s and individual members of the public, to ensure the palm oil they use in their products does not come from plantations established at the expense of rainforests and endangered species.

Primate Eco-tourism

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries, and ecotourism has emerged as one of its leading sectors, estimated to be growing at a rate of between 10% and 15% per year (Matthews, 2002). Ecotourism has been defined as travel to natural areas that conserves the natural environment and helps the local people (Chinet al,2000), and is seen increasingly as a significant tool in the conservation of endangered species, by providing local people with economic alternatives to resource exploitation (Nakamura & Nishida, 2009), raising living standards (Matthews, 2002), providing awareness and financial support for conservation (Ash, 2006) and financing protected areas (Wilkie & Carpenter, 1999). Although ecotourism has enjoyed broad support as a conservation tool, concerns have been raised that the development of tourism can negatively impact on the environment, by the development of urban infrastructure, can cause stress to animals and affect their behavior and cause social problems for local people (Roeet al,1997).

Ecotourism has become an increasingly popular tool in the conservation of the great apes, which are all either endangered or critically endangered in the wild (Becket al, 2001, cited in Nakamura & Nishida, 2009). In Africa, ecotourism has involved habituating groups of wild gorillas and chimpanzees to human observers (Nakamura & Nishida, 2009), and such projects have thrived; In Uganda, tourism has become the principal source of foreign exchange, and gorilla and chimpanzee viewing is responsible for 52% of tourism revenue (Wrangham, 2008, cited in Nakamura & Nishida, 2009).

In Indonesia and Malaysia, home to the only remaining populations of orangutans, ecotourism has taken a different approach. Unlike chimpanzees and gorillas, which live in large social groups and spend a significant proportion of their time on the ground (Redmond, 2008), orangutans are semi-solitary and almost strictly arboreal (Gladikas, 1985). As such, they are difficult to find and observe from the ground, and even when found, have often been accused by tourists of being boring (pers. obs), on account of their slow activity patterns; orangutans in some areas spend 60.1% of their time foraging and eating, and 18.2% resting (Gladikas, 1988). Instead, tourism most often revolves around ex-captive orangutans, which are often more social than those in the wild (Yeager, 1997), and spend more time on the ground and in association with conspecifics (Snaith, 1999). Hence, they are often easier for tourists to see.

Tanjung Puting National Park is a 416,000-hectare park in the province of Central Kalimantan. The park hosts a wide variety of biodiversity (Brend, 2006), but is most famous for its population of Bornean orangutans; the park was estimated to comprise a population of 6000 individuals in 2004 (Singletonet al,2004), though it is possibly less now. Orangutan rehabilitation began in Tanjung Puting in 1971, concentrated around the Camp Leakey study area (Galdikas, 1982). Ninety orangutans were released there between 1971 and 1985 (Galdikas & Ashbury, 2012), and possibly as many as 180 up to 1994 (Yeager, 1997) when orangutan rehabilitation began being moved to other areas. Today, tourists can visit ex-captive orangutans at 3 areas in the park, Camp Leakey, Tanjung Harapan and Pondok Tanggui (Brend, 2006), where orangutans are given a daily supply of milk and fruit daily at a feeding and viewing platform (Galdikas & Ashbury, 2012). Although Tanjung Puting contains a large wild population and some wild individuals visit the feeding platforms (Ibid), most tourists will only see ex-captive orangutans and their offspring (pers. obs).

Bukit Lawang is a former orangutan rehabilitation center situated in the Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, an 830,000-hectare park situated in the Leuser Ecosystem (Dellatore, 2007; Singletonet al,2004). Bukit Lawang acted as a Sumatran orangutan(Pongo abelii)rehabilitation project between 1972 and 1991, with 227 orangutans being associated with the project, though 51 are confirmed as having died (Dellatore, 2007). Orangutans are no longer rehabilitated at the center, but the area remains home to a number of ex-captive orangutans and their offspring, who receive supplementary feedings of fruit and milk twice a day at a feeding platform attended by tourists (Ibid).Official Forestry Department figures show 206,963 foreign tourists visited Bukit Lawang between 1985 and 2003, an average of 10,893 per year, and 5,800 domestic tourists visited per year between 1990 and 2003 (Ibid).In total, 288,165 people visited this site in 18 years, though this might be less than half the real figure if unregistered visitors are taken in to account (Rijksen & Meijaard, 1999, cited in Dellatore, 2007).

The ex-captive tourist sites in both Tanjung Puting and Gunung Leuser remain controversial (Russon, 2009), and there have been longstanding fears about the effects such high densities of people have on the orangutans. In both national parks, tourists have been observed soliciting contact with orangutans, stroking them, trying to touch infants leading to aggressive encounters with mothers, shaking trees to get an orangutans attention and taunting them with fruit (pers. obs), and similar behaviors have been seen elsewhere; Bowden, 1980 reports seeing ex-captive orangutans at Sepilok in Malaysian Borneo being approached by humans, offered food, being touched, harassed, hit and kicked (cited in Snaith, 2009), and Yeager, 1997 reports that 3 released individuals in Tanjung Puting were recaptured and released in to other areas after aggressive encounters with humans.

The close proximity of humans and orangutans at such tourist sites remains a concern; the close phylogenetic relationship between humans and non-human primates means pathogen exchange is a risk (Gillespieet al,2008), and the great apes are particularly susceptible (Homsy, 1999). A number of cases of illnesses in apes have been shown to be linked to human respiratory viruses and bacteria, including influenza, measles, mumps, pneumococcal pneumonia and herpes viruses(Ibid),and in the Virunga volcanoes in Africa, over 81% of gorillas in 7 groups used for research and tourism purposes suffered from an influenza-like disease, with 6 adults dying from it in 1988 alone (Reynolds, 2006, cited in Isabirye-Basuta & Lwanga, 2008).

Surveys at the Sepilok orangutan rehabilitation centre in Malaysia show that a significant portion of tourists that visit this center, which totaled 97,367 in 2006 (Muehlenbeinet al,2010), is ill and potentially infectious at the time they visit and risked infecting the animals, local inhabitants of the area and Sepilok rangers (Ibid).Such diseases not only pose a threat to the ex-captive orangutans, but risk spreading to the wild populations, which would have no such natural resistance. Although authors have argued that the largely solitary nature of wild orangutans would inhibit disease transmission (Galdikas & Briggs, 1999), ex-captive orangutans at Tanjung Puting have been shown to be social, often travel together, and have been observed soliciting play with wild females and their offspring and climbing in and out of their nests (Yeager, 1997), and that ex-captives are exposed to human diseases and that respiratory diseases and skin infections have been transmitted between individuals (Ibid).

The risk of behavioral changes in wildlife also remains a concern at ecotourism sites. Bukit Lawang, Sepilok, and Tanjung Puting all report higher infant mortality in the offspring of ex-captives than is seen in wild orangutans (Dellatoreet al, 2009; Russon, 2009), and cases of ex-captive females at Bukit Lawang cannibalizing their offspring, a previously undocumented behavior in wild orangutans, may have been influenced by stress caused by the high concentration of humans in the area (Dellatore et al, 2009).

Modifications in primate behavior are seen in numerous other primate ecotourism sites. An examination of the impacts tourists have had on wild howler monkeys in the 400 hectare Lamanai Archaeological Reserve in Belize, which attracted 21,499 visitors in 2000 (Grossberget al,2003), has shown that 25% of all tourists have observed other tourists or guides interacting with howler monkeys, shaking branches, trying to make them roar, offering food or making physical contact with them (Ibid), and that such provocation disrupted activity patterns, with juveniles, females, and infants avoiding provocation by moving higher in to the canopy, while adult and sub-adult males responded by roaring or approaching the humans, moving to the ground to bite people, or grabbing bags (Ibid). Intense roaring against humans has also provoked neighboring howler monkey groups to either roar back or approach (Ibid).As howler monkeys are highly territorial, spend the majority of their time in the trees, roaring is believed to act as a spacing mechanism, and competition between adult males is intense (Redmond, 2008; Di Fore & Campbell, 2007), such behavior is a concern.

Instances of primates descending to the ground and biting or attacking humans have been observed at a number of primate ecotourism sites (Fuenteset al,2007), and often involves provisioning of food, which can increase levels of aggression (Westin, 2007; Hsuet al,2009). In India, monkeys around Hindu temples are given hand-outs by local people and tourists and often become aggressive when food is denied, tearing clothes, biting, and raiding pantries and hotel rooms (Wolfe, 2002, cited in Westin, 2007). In Tanzania, vervet monkeys have been seen waiting at picnic tables and public toilets to ambush tourists to take their food (Ibid).Fuenteset al,2007 found that at the Padangtegal Hindu temple on the Indonesian island of Bali, the strongest enticement for contact between tourists and the resident long-tailed macaques was the presence of food or the suggestion of it, in the form of plastic bags or items wrapped in banana leaves, and though there are signs warning tourists against feeding, such aggressive encounters are common, with 11.4% resulting in bites.

Macaques have the widest distribution of any non-human primate (Thierry, 2007), and their home ranges frequently overlap with humans and tourist sites (Fuentes, 2004). Conflict between humans and macaques often leads to injury in both species, and there is a great risk of disease transmission; macaques can carry diseases that can transfer to humans, including simian foamy virus, herpes B and simian retrovirus, and humans carry influenza and respiratory pathogens that can spread to macaques (McCarthyet al,2009). Wild Tibetan macaques can be seen by tourists at two sites in China, Mt. Emei and Mt. Huangshan. Examinations into macaque-human interactions at these sites show that humans initiate contact with macaques far more than macaques do with humans, with pointing, waving, making facial threats and slapping the railings the most common observed human behaviors (Ibid).Although humans and macaques were found to provoke each other, many of the human behaviors observed were repeated, indicating tourists were deliberately antagonizing macaques and waiting for a reaction (Ibid).The macaques at Mt. Emei regularly rob food and other possessions from visitors, injuries are common and 10 people even died in a period of 8 years as a result of conflict encounters(Ibid).Such observations have also been seen at macaque tourist sites in Taiwan and Gibraltar, where humans initiate contact with the monkeys far more than macaques do with humans (Ibid;Hsuet al,2009).

Aggressive primate encounters can not only be a danger to the tourists involved, but the increasing habituation of primates and corresponding boldness can create problems for local people; monkeys that have been habituated to the presence of tourists often seek out contact with humans, and raid crops and garbage bins (Muehlenbeinet al,2010). In Gibraltar, the increase in tourist activity around the resident Barbary macaques from 1960 onwards, to around 800,000 people per year, led to a rise in illegal provisioning, and taxi drivers and tour guides encouraging closer interactions between macaques and tourists, often so tourists could get better photos (Fuenteset al,2007). Today, people in the tourist industry have a vested interest in conserving the macaques, but many residents in Gibraltar complain that they raid bins and occasionally kitchens looking for food, and have actively called for them to be removed and for some to be culled(Ibid).

Local people often suffering as a result of conservation projects is not a new phenomenon; the development of national parks and protected areas have traditionally excluded local people from those areas, affecting their income and traditional subsistence methods, and creating negative attitudes to conservation (Hartter & Goldman, 2010). Ecotourism has aimed to rectify this, however, by bringing economic benefits to local communities.

Kibale National Park is a 79,500-hectare park in Western Uganda (Hartter, 2009) and its population of wild chimpanzees attract tourists to the area (Lepp, 2008), which is one of the most densely populated in Sub-Saharan Africa (Lepp & Holland, 2006), with 262 individuals per km2 on the west side of the park, and 335 individual per km2 on the east side (Hartter, 2009). The predominant subsistence crops in the area are bananas, maize, beans and cassava (Ibid). Authors working in the area have shown that 74% of local people have reported problems with crop raiding and wild animals killing small livestock, with red-tail and vervet monkeys the most common nuisance animal,with other species of monkey and elephants also cited as problems(Ibid). A tourism project has been developed in the small, rural village of Bigodi, which borders the park, which attracts an average of 75 tourists per month and centres on an area of swampland which had always been considered a nuisance to locals but offers visitors a perfect view of different species of monkeys and birds (Lepp, 2008). Despite the high levels of poverty in the area and the need for income, residents were initially deeply anxious of allowing tourists into their community, and considered the project a plan by westerners to steal land and resources(Ibid).Although residents’ views have since warmed to tourism, conservation of the swamp has seen wildlife increase and a corresponding increase in the levels of crop raiding(Ibid).Although tourism has been successful and provides employment for young men, farming is still the principal subsistence strategy in the village, and crop raiding therefore not only threatens people’s subsistence and economic activities, but has been noted to effect education in the village, as children are made to miss school to guard crops (Ibid).

Such findings are not isolated. More than one million people visit Costa Rica every year, and the tourism industry is heavily promoted and has an annual turnover of over $1,200 million (Koenset al,2009). Nature tourism in the country is considered successful, but an examination of four tourist sites in Costa Rica found that, at two sites, the development of infrastructure for tourism purposes had resulted in vegetation damage, disturbance to wildlife, and had increased the risk of erosion, with a corresponding loss of biodiversity, and air pollution had increased as a result of higher numbers of vehicles entering the area (Ibid). The economic improvements tourism can bring vary depending on who owns accommodation and services used, and whether money stays in the area, but an increase in tourism was seen to bring increased education, medical care and increased levels of female empowerment (Ibid),although community organisation had diminished, alcohol and drug consumption had increased and some areas had seen in an increase in crime(Ibid).

The examples shown in this article demonstrate some of the challenges and complexities inherent in tourism involving species that are often endangered and highly intelligent, opportunistic and capable of aggression (Hadiswoyo, 2008) and live in areas of high human densities and low economic activity. They are not, however, representative of all primate ecotourism projects.

Great ape ecotourism remains challenging, and as demonstrated by Tanjung Puting and Bukit Lawang, is difficult when the subject is an ex-captive, but tourism with other great apes has had some notable successes; tourism is regarded as one of the reasons the number of mountain gorillas are increasing (Redmond, 2008), and gorilla trekking is the most popular activity for international tourists travelling to Rwanda (Spenceleyet al,2010), with 16,937 people travelling to the Virunga National Park in 2008 to see the gorillas (Ibid).The tourism industry around this park in Rwanda is estimated to be around $42.7 million, in terms of turnover for accommodation, tour operators, shopping and other excursions,and the park itself directly employs at least 180 people (Ibid).The success of gorilla tourism, in business terms, and the increasing economic viability of the mountain gorilla population have led protecting them to be considered economically important for the government and local businesses (Redmond, 2008). Such an attitude has also been seen in Tanjung Puting in Indonesia, which suffered widespread logging during the crisis that followed the resignation of General Soeharto in 1998; at its height, it is believed up to 800 ramin wood logs were being taken out of the park every day (EIA, 2003). The only part of the park that remained relatively undisturbed was the Camp Leakey study area, the principal tourist area in the park (OFI, 1999; G. Shapiro, personal communication).

The threat of disease transmission remains a concern in all areas where humans and non-human primates come in to contact; as well as habituated gorillas, chimpanzees living at the famous Gombe National Park in Tanzania have been shown to be at risk of tuberculosis from people, and have suffered in the past from polio and a respiratory disease that killed 11 chimpanzees (Wallis & Lee, 1999), and a female researcher in the Ivory Coast caught the Ebola virus from an infected chimpanzee in 1994 (Goldberget al,2007). While exposure at tourism sites is always a risk, it could be reduced by the enforcement of existing rules that govern primate viewing, or strengthening of those that are unsatisfactory; Homsy, 1999, recommends limiting the number of visits to gorillas, reducing the number of tourists per group, increasing the distance between humans and gorillas, enforcing rules on eating, litter and faeces disposal and stronger enforcement of rules forbidding tourists exhibiting illnesses.

Enforcing existing rules would also help mitigate aggressive encounters at sites involving monkeys. All reserves in Gibraltar that house macaques have signs stating that feeding them is illegal, punishable by a £500 fine, and warning humans of potential dangers (Fuenteset al,2007). In Bali, while staff tentatively try and discourage contact between humans and macaques, they rarely directly intercede, unless aggression occurs (Ibid).Singapore has an education and awareness programme in areas where humans and macaques come in to contact, and sometimes enforces fines and penalties for people caught feeding them (McCarthyet al,2009). As interactions have been shown to be more aggressive when food is involved, similar rules and enforcement should be developed at all ecotourism sites. Enforcement of rules is often difficult for park rangers, for cultural reasons (pers. obs), and could possibly lead to arguments with tourists, but strongly regulated tourist sites would likely decrease aggressive encounters and make primate viewing a much safer activity; Grossberget al,2003 specifically recommend education and enforcement as a way of reducing human-howler monkey conflict in Belize.

The greatest success for ecotourism projects will likely come from the involvement of local people. Increasing efforts have been made to ensure local people benefit from wildlife tourism (Aharikundira & Tweheyo, 2011), but communities adjacent to protected areas still suffer from high levels of conflict and, particularly, crop raiding (Ibid;Distefano, 2005). Bwindi National Park in Uganda has a large population of mountain gorillas and a lucrative tourism trade, but habituated gorillas regularly raid local farms (Aharikundira & Tweheyo, 2011). To mitigate this conflict, gorilla conservation organisations have organised special response units to help protect crops and limit retaliatory action, which authors show have reduced raiding and attacks on humans (Ibid).Such projects enjoy community support(Ibid).However, local people complain that park authorities are so focused on gorillas that they remain indifferent to crop damage by other animals, which is often more severe (Ibid).

As the case studies have shown, primate tourism sites can often bring development which negatively impacts on the environment, and the influx of large amounts of people can change traditional cultural and social behaviours, lead to an increase in crime, and can lead to an increase in prices that exclude local people from areas they have traditionally used (Koenset al,2009). However, they have been shown to also bring medical facilities and increased education (Ibid)and can help the poor; revenue from tourism in Rwanda has not only helped alleviate poverty and provide employment (Spenceleyet al,2010) but has also contributed to reconciliation and peace in the country (Alluri, 2009).

An examination in to ecotourism sites worldwide by Matthews, 2002 showed that the most successful ecotourism projects were those with the most efficient management structure, that efficiency was improved by the involvement and training of local people, and that resources had to be shared equally to improve attitudes to conservation areas and reduce conflict in and between communities, and that those sites struggling with community support were those lacking community development projects, had inefficient management and where resources were denied to local people and revenue was often taken out of the area. This research is corroborated by evidence from the macaque tourist sites in Bali and Gibraltar; in Bali, despite aggressive encounters and instances of crop raiding, local people remain tolerant of the macaques and supportive of the ecotourism project, largely because the majority of tourism revenue remains in the village and is distributed by the village council for infrastructure and cultural projects, while in Gibraltar, a richer and more developed area, the government receives all entrance fees and revenue from the tourist sites, and local support has wavered (Fuenteset al,2007).

On paper, ecotourism can appear relatively simple. In reality, it is a difficult process that in many cases struggles to combine habitat and wildlife conservation with the reasonable expectations and needs of the local people who depend on that habitat, and often come in to conflict with its wildlife. Only by including local people in the conception and management of ecotourism projects and making sure revenue is distributed equally can such projects be successful, and only by eco-tourists strictly adhering to the rules and regulations of tourism sites can such sites fully safeguard animals from diseases, abnormal behavioural changes and heightened levels of aggression.

Legal Challenges in the Conservation of Orangutans: Case of Tripa Peat Swamp

Historic Court Ruling against Palm Oil Company to Benefit Orangutans

by Donna Clifford-Jones, Norman, OK.

Indonesia’s position as one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil and concomitant leadership in global deforestation continues to have devastating consequences for Sumatra’s orangutans.[1]Over time the species has been increasingly driven out of its natural habitat with the clearing, burning and conversion of forests into palm oil plantations.[2] This is especially seen in the Tripa peat swamp forest in Aceh province which is a critical habitat for orangutans.[3] The forest is part of the legally protected Leuser Ecosystem, designated as a National Strategic Area for environmental protection, and where it is illegal to issue permits for palm oil, mining or other damaging activities.[4] Unfortunately, the profit motive has seen the palm oil companies intrude into this protected area which is now in a perilous condition.

Prosecutions have been sought against a number of companies for illegal activities relating to the forest destruction.[5]The remainder of this article will describe the legal proceedings initiated against one company, PT Kallista Alam. In the wider sense, the case illustrates the competing agendas of the local and central governments of Indonesia in dealing with the economic and environmental issues facing the country. In the narrower sense, the case offers a ray of hope for the survival of Sumatra’s orangutans.

Background to case

In May 2011, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono placed a two-year national moratorium on new permits in primary forests and peat lands. The decision was required by the agreement on REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), a climate agreement with the objective of protecting primary forests and peat lands to cut carbon emissions.[6] The effect of the President’s moratorium was that new plantation developments would be prohibited in many parts of the Tripa peat swamp forest.

On August 25, 2011, the Governor of Aceh province, Irwandi Yusuf, infringed the moratorium by issuing a permit to the company PT Kallista Alam. This allowed it to develop 1,605 hectares in the Tripa peat swamp forest into an oil palm plantation.[7] The oversight organization monitoring the moratorium, the Presidential Working Union for Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), criticized the decision and advised the Governor to select alternative land for the permit. The provincial government defended the Governor’s decision stating that the permit had been correctly issued.[8]

On October 24, 2011, local NGOs sent a letter to the Governor stating they would take legal action if he failed to withdraw the permit. With no action forthcoming and the ongoing rhetoric from groups like PanEco and YEL stating they would challenge the permit’s legality in court, communities decided to report the permit violation to the national police in Jakarta. Some of these groups ended up assisting in the subsequent legal proceedings by bringing national and international media attention to the Tripa area.[9]

Additionally, environmental groups persuaded senior officials in the government and specifically the Ministry of Environment (MOE) to investigate the matter further.[10]The head of the task force for the REDD+ agency also asked the MOE to investigate because of the permit’s violation of the national moratorium.[11]

The MOE’s formal investigation in May 2012, revealed that the company had been clearing forests in the Tripa area for up to ten months prior to receiving the permit.[12] Satellite imagery and community reports identified concessions of both PT Kallista Alam and other companies that had breached the moratorium and Spatial Planning Law of 2007, which makes it illegal and a criminal offense to use fire to clear forests on peat lands.[13] But despite the investigation, the forest clearance, peat lands drainage, and burning continued.

Legal proceedings

A series of legal proceedings have revolved around the above events involving a number of different parties.

The lawsuit filed by WALHI

The first of these proceeding took place on November 23, 2011, when WALHI filed a lawsuit to revoke the permit against Governor Irwandi Yusuf and PT Kallista Alam at the Administrative Court of Banda Aceh.[14] It argued that the permit was issued illegally in a protected area within the Leuser Ecosystem and that it violated the moratorium on new permits.[15]

The case was dismissed at first instance with the judge citing lack of capacity. WALHI successfully appealed the decision at the Medan State Administrative High Court, where the court found violations in the issuance of the permit and at least one illegal concession owned by the company. The court ordered the new Governor of Aceh, Zaini Abdullah, to cancel the permit in the illegal concession.[16] On September 27, 2012, the permit was withdrawn in the new Governor’s decree, revoking the decree of former Governor.[17]

The company appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in Jakarta. It also filed a separate lawsuit against the new Governor in the Administrative Court of Banda Aceh. Lawyers for the company told The Globe Journal that as litigants they were “requested to improve the lawsuit”.[18] The Government of Aceh’s Legal Division and PR challenged the suit in response.[19]

WALHI’s motion to intervene

On December 13, 2012, WALHI motioned to intervene and join as a co-defendant with the Governor against the suit. The company objected to the motion stating WALHI had no interest in the case. WALHI maintained that the motion was based on the original case filed against the former Governor and the legal precedent set by that case, that being the decision instructing the new Governor to revoke the permit. WALHI also stated that it wanted to demonstrate its support for the new Governor’s decision.[20]The court granted the motion on January 8, 2013.

For the remainder of the session, PT Kallista’s lawyers requested the court cancel the permit revocation or at least postpone that decision until the appeal to the Supreme Court in Jakarta was finalized. The court granted the request and moved to continue the trial to January 23, 2013.[21]

The appeal to the Supreme Court was later rejected, upholding the Medan State Administrative High Court’s decision and order that the new Governor revoke the permit.[22]

Lawsuit filed by MOE

A second set of proceedings took place on November 8, 2012, when prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office representing the MOE filed civil and criminal lawsuits against PT Kallista Alam at the District Court of Meulaboh. The charges were the illegal clearing of peat lands by burning and causing environmental damage in the Tripa peat swamp forest. A P16 “Order of Appointment for the Public Prosecutor to Observe the Development of the Investigation of the Crime” was prepared for the criminal case.[23]

The first civil trial hearing took place on November 27, 2012, but was postponed because PT Kallista Alam’s lawyers failed to appear. The documents for the criminal lawsuit were still under evaluation by the Attorney General but once completed were to be sent to the District Court for both the civil and criminal proceedings to be conducted there.[24]

The next civil trial hearing was held on December 12, 2012, to verify the parties’ identification. The session only lasted fifteen minutes and was postponed to January 7, 2013, because PT Kallista’s lawyers failed to submit a written power of attorney. An interview with The Globe Journal confirmed they had only been verbally assigned to represent the company.[25]

At some point, a mediation hearing was arranged for January 30, 2013, at the District Court of Meulaboh. The mediation was an attempt to settle the civil case, with the stipulation that the company pays compensation for the environmental damage caused by clearing the peatlands by burning. [The stipulation was based on the obligation to rehabilitate which was part of the original civil law suit].[26]

A further hearing followed on July 7, 2013, with the MOE’s first expert witness stating that damage to the Tripa Peat swamp forest was caused by frequent flooding, which was caused in turn by the destruction of the peat by fire and the opening of the canals. A second expert witness stated that the fire in the company’s concession was caused by a human act and that he had based his findings on field visits to the area.[27]

Over the ensuing months, protestors both in favor and against PT Kallista Alam gathered at the court. On July 11, 2012, protestors against the company demanded the immediate withdrawal of the permit and payment to the community for damages caused to the land.[28] On November 15, 2012, protestors in support of the company, who had been paid to disrupt proceedings, demanded a decision be found in PT Kallista’s favor.[29]

Despite the intimidation tactics from protestors, the court ordered PT Kallista’s assets be frozen, and scheduled a final hearing for December 5, 2012, when a ruling was to be delivered. But this date was also postponed.[30] Kamaruddin, a lawyer representing the Tripa community, and Deddy Ratih, WALHI’s Spatial Planning Campaigner, stated in separate accounts they believed the company was prolonging the proceedings to avoid a judgment against it.[31]

District Court’s ruling

One month later, on January I, 2014, the court handed down its final ruling in the civil case against PT Kallista Alam. The company was found guilty of illegally clearing peatland forest by burning within the protected Tripa peat swamp forest in violation of the national law 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management.

The court ordered that the company pay Rupiah 114.3 billion (USD 9.4 million) compensation to the state and an environmental restoration fee of Rupiah 251.7 billion (USD 20.6 million) to rehabilitate the land destroyed.[32] A daily fine of 5 million rupiah (USD 423) was imposed for each day the compensation and restoration costs remain unpaid. The court also ordered that 5,769 hectares of the company’s land be seized.[33]

At the time of the decision, the criminal case was still under evaluation by the Attorney General’s Office. Alfian Sarumaha, PT Kallista’s lawyer stated that he expected the company to appeal the decision.[34]

Consequences of the court’s ruling for orangutans

The court’s ruling established a new historic precedent that reinforced protection of primary forests and peatlands under the existing moratorium and the law prohibiting the use of fire to clear land. The expectation is that this will deter companies from future illegal clearing and burning in protected areas.[35] This should result in slowing down the destruction of further orangutan habitat.

The company may appeal the decision. If it appeals and loses or fails to appeal, the court’s ruling will enter into legal force. The order to pay an environmental restoration fee will then be used to develop a plan to rehabilitate the land to its natural state, although the prospect is that the land could take three decades to recover completely.[36] Restoration projects like this, though a move in the right direction will have no immediate benefit to the orangutan habitat.

The ruling has also generated increased international awareness and support for the need to protect Aceh’s forests, with petitions collected from over one and a half million signatures.[37] This is an important outcome, along with spreading the message to avoid the purchase of palm oil products. Ideally, this should decrease the pressure on using protected areas of land for palm oil plantations which will benefit orangutans.

Finally, the ruling sets a precedent for future legal proceedings which may need to be relied on if the new provincial spatial plan by-law that ignores the protected status of the Leuser Ecosystem becomes law and legal proceedings ensue.[38] The question then becomes whether the precedent will be followed when the entire Leuser Ecosystem is under threat. The implementation of such a by-law will have a significant impact on orangutan habitat and perhaps be the deciding factor in the long-term survival of the species. With this outlook, there is no room for complacency in the battle to protect the forests of Sumatra and its orangutans.